The use of chlorine, and to a lesser degree, bromine, and saline, to disinfect both indoor and outdoor swimming pools has been used for some time in order to reduce micro-organism populations. Halogen-containing compounds are used as a result of their rapid in vivo microbiocidal activity due to their strong oxidizing potential in the presence of organic residues, which is essential for rapid reduction of pathogens, which can promote the induction and spread of disease. Chlorine is by far the most widely used disinfectant due primarily to its cost effectiveness and acceptable safety profile. The chlorine compounds most effectively employed consist of sodium hypochlorite, calcium hypochlorite and chlorinated isocyanurates. Sodium hypochlorite is preferred as a result of its lower cost water solubility and ease of dispersion together with easier control of pH requirements for optimal microbiocidal activity. To this effect sodium hypochlorite dissociates in water into hypochlorous acid together with sodium and hypochlorite ions depending upon the pH of the water.
            HOCl                                                  H        +                            OCl        -                        Hypochlorous                                increasing          ⁢                                          ⁢                      pH            --                          ->                            Hydrogen        +                    Hypochlorite                  Acid                      <                              -            decreasing                    ⁢                                          ⁢          pH                            Ion              Ion      
The hypochlorous acid (HA) is the species, which is the oxidant and micro biocide, and therefore, based on the above reaction, exhibits a maximum concentration at neutral pH or in actuality 7.2 to 7.8, These ranges are critical as at 7.2, 66% exists as HA compared to 33% at 7.8, At acidic pH, the chlorine is rapidly lost and at high pH the HA rapidly falls as the equilibrium favors the inactive ionic dissociation as shown above. Based on the foregoing, the advantages of using a halogen and particularly chlorine are obvious, however, the potent oxidizing potential presents deleterious effects to hair. This is evident to both short and long term exposure as oxidants of this type exhibit a rapid electrophilic attack (i.e., draw electrons) from any organic substance, such as hair, lowering its tensile strength, which promotes cuticle damage. This exposes the interior hair morphology to further electrophilic attack leading to free radical induced cellular damage within the cortex. In summary, the least of these problems are also cosmetic, leaving healthy hair damaged, dry/stiff, and subject to breakage in addition to snarling and tangling.
Hair treatment products have been designed for consumer use to rectify and, or mitigate the foregoing consisting of post-treatment with shampoo and conditioners containing antioxidants or reducing agents to remove residual chlorine from hair after swimming. However, these products have been, for the most part, ineffective mainly as a result of the rapid oxidation effects to hair as described above. As a result, the post-treatments described above do not address the irreversible problem of deleterious effects encountered while swimming.
There exists a need in the art for a pre-treatment of hair and scalp prior to immersion in the treated pool arena.